Former longtime Colorado Eagles forward Steve Haddon is heading up the state’s newest hockey team, the Colorado Junior Eagles of the Western States Hockey League (junior-A, Tier III). Haddon, 29, who completed an eight-year stint with the ECHL’s Eagles last spring, will serve as head coach and his assistant will be Morgan Cey, a former Notre Dame and Eagles goaltender. The Junior Eagles are “endorsed” by the ECHL team and will begin training camp Aug. 16 at the Northern Colorado Ice Center, which borders Windsor and Fort Collins. They will play their first season at Edora Pool and Ice Center (EPIC) in Fort Collins but ultimately move to the Northern Colorado Ice Center.

Haddon says the pay-to-play WSHL will feature 24 teams this coming season, and the Junior Eagles will play in the Mountain Division with the Boulder Bison, Cheyenne Stampede, New Mexico Renegades, Arizona Redhawks and Phoenix Knights. The WSHL is an amateur league that’s all about offering a place for kids to play and advance to Tier I or Tier II leagues such as the United States Hockey League or North American Hockey League, respectively, and keep their NCAA ambitions alive.

The ECHL Eagles also “endorses” the Colorado Jr. Eagles, the northern Colorado youth organization and member of the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.

Chambers covers college and professional hockey for The Denver Post. He has written for the Post since 1994, after dumping his first 9-to-5 office job a couple years out of college. He primarily follows the University of Denver hockey team and helps cover the Avalanche.